I have been MIA for awhile from this blog because we moved and life was chaos... but since the question in the post below is from me I thought I might explain a little better what I meant.
I am talking specifically about how spiritual gifts play out in the church, in community. We all know how some of the gifts "look"- preaching, teaching, encouragement, hospitality those are pretty easy to see. But how about the gift of wisdom? or discernment? Or how about the gift of tongues with interpretation in some of the more conservative denominations? How about prophecy?
How do we, as a community, encourage those with the gift of wisdom to use it? What would it look like if they DID use it? How do we facilitate the gift of discernment in our churches? How do we respond to people with those gifts? Is there a way for those gifts to be used publicly or only in one-on-one situations?
For example say that the board of elders is meeting about an issue of great importance to the church body and they are stuck. They just don't know what to do. So the chairman of the board goes home and shares his frustrations with his wife. His wife happens to have the gift of discernment. She has an immediate and clear answer. How should she and her husband go about sharing this revelation? Would anyone listen if they did? What if she stood up on Sunday and shared her wisdom with the congregation... is that even an option? And how do the general masses in church know whether a person has the gift of wisdom or is just a crackpot who wants attention?
I have talked to many people who don't know what there "place" is in church... some of these likely have "less obvious" spiritual gifts, gifts that are harder to see. What is their place? I personally have never seen a sign-up list for those with the gift of discernment to join a discernment committee. But I have seen dozens of sign-up lists for those with the gift of teaching (we need Sunday school teachers), or hospitality (we need billets for the visiting choir tour), or helps (we need folks to help us fix up this building), etc.
I have been a pastor's wife for almost 10 years and I definitely have NOT figured this out. Feel free to enlighten me!
8 comments:
Good question(s)! for starters one might question the notion that we actually have gifts in such a way. i'm not sure we do. i know it may just be a terminology thing and it is okay to say "i have the gift of discernment" when trying to identify something in particular that has been affirmed in our lives by the church, but it is a bit much if i ever say "i have the gift of discernment" in any way associated with a sentence where i am sharing my insight or opinion about something.
my "having" the gift or not has nothing to do with whether i'd be right in that instant any more than my "having" the gift of teaching means i'm 100% right about what i teach or even the best teacher in the room or the best equipped to teach any given topic.
at the end of the day, can't the "crackpot" and the one with the gift be the same person, and the issue is maturity in the following of the Spirit's leading and the proper stewardship of the grace given?
that's a starter thought, not to ignore the other questions, but to me it seems like it has a bearing on the others.
i think you've got a great thought there though Tara. we could be a lot better at figuring out what to do with the gifts. or could we? maybe they aren't so much things we identify on a spiritual gift inventory test and then learn to use like tools, as much as they are things the body recognizes in us as we serve, and then learns to encourage and draw from as it also seeks to build us up in maturity of faith and growth in Christ.
i'm more comfortable with the latter idea, although i think it still leaves ramifications to sort through.
oh, a couple other random thoughts.
- i'm not sure we keep the same gifts our whole lives. in fact they may change regularly and often. even situationally at times. though there may be one or two that we are entrusted with more and more and which stick with us.
- i think we serve the church not only in the areas of gifting. "gifting" doesn't seem like it was meant to be used as a total cop-out, even if it should direct us in ways.
- i think the church tells us our gifts, in dialogue with us.
- the gifts are always ultimately for the body. too much focus on how great it is for us (to serve how we're "wired") gets twisted pretty fast into a gospel of self-fulfillment that belongs on oprah more than the community Christ is making.
It's late, so I'm just going to drop a quick thought based on Tara's questions and Jon's comments.
Is one of the problems with our difficulties with the idea of spiritual gifts tied to our misapprehension of the work of the Spirit in the Church? I mean, is this a problem with our theology of the Trinity, and not our theology of the Church?
I like what Jon says about gifts being seasonal or situational. That seems to fit with the work of the Spirit. The Spirit is doing something in a local body and so the Spirit empowers some person to be a special part of that work, as teacher, discerner, voice of wisdom, whatever.
As for how we recognize that or differentiate it from crackpot nonsense? I think Jon's on to something with the idea of the body recognizing gifts in theory. The problem, of course, is that the body is pretty consistently bone-headed. I don't know...that needs some thinking and right now I'm tired and need bed.
yep, I agree that "gifts" can be situational, for a time, for a season, etc. I also agree that it is not really about us and how much we like it... but I DO think God gifts people for certain things/ministries/ etc... even if it is only for a certain time. But regardless of what we call it I think discernment/ wisdom/ prophecy type gifts- for ANY length of time- are largely ignored. And a LOT of emphasis is put on "encouragement" and "hospitality"... and I think it is because they are more tangible, we can see them with our own eyes- and we have watered down encouragement to the point that it is almost useless- encouragement as a gifting is so much more than saying something nice to someone.
Anyway, it IS late and I must sleep in order to stop myself from continuing to babble. I will think on it more.
Oh, and I passionately hate "spiritual gift" test and inventories. Hate them. Complete nonsense in my humble (yet outspoken) opinion. :)
hey... just wondering why exactly we have ditched the "spiritual gift for life" ideology... is it just because we are gen-x? What about people who do believe they have one specific spiritual gift and have always had it and can tell you what it is? Do we think they are wrong? Or does God do it both ways?
Like I said, I have a lot of questions about this stuff. But less about whether Spiritual gifts exist- I think they do and the how/when/why of them really doesn't make that much difference to me.
It is the actual way the church deals with them that confuses me. Like why is the gift of tongues prevalent in the Pentecostal denomination but not the Alliance? And why is there not always an interpreter? And why would the church NOT use those with the gifts of wisdom and discernment? And why do I cringe when someone stands up and says they have a prophecy? And why does someone standing up and saying "I have a word from the Lord" make me think immediately "ya, right"? Because you know what? I'm fairly certain I am not the only one thinking that.
Is it even possible to overcome the cynicism or do we have to completely ditch things first and come up with new terminology for the exact same thing so we think we are doing things differently from those who came before us?
Just thoughts.
Try to remember that women- me specifically- often process things outloud (or in rambling writing) and nothing is necessarily set in stone. I'm not trying to argue anything really.
Honestly I think that the answers to most of your questions have more to do with culture than with theology. I'm also fairly sure (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong here) that talking about "spiritual gifts" as though they were particular manifestations of the work of the Spirit in the Church is a pretty recent phenomenon. My guess is that the early precursors to the pentecostal movement in the late 19th century would be the first place since the earliest days of the Church where you'd find that kind of talk.
So our love for teaching in the CMA is probably more about our connection to the fundamentalist movement in the 40s and 50s than anything else. And our love for healing (in theory at least) is tied to our earliest roots in Simpson's contact with the Pentecostals.
And you're not the only one who roles her eyes when someone says they have a "word." I do that too. I can't speak for anyone else, but for me I think it's pretty closely tied to my tendency towards rationalism and logical argumentation.
As for the season v. lifetime gift thingy...I'd say that any theology of spiritual giftedness has to be written in pencil. Some people might get gifts for a day, some people for a year, some people for their whole lives. When I mentioned the bit about the Spirit I was kind of trying to say that spiritual gifts are his work and so they do what he needs for the time that he needs them.
Plus, how would we even know if someone's giftedness was "spiritual" instead of just natural talent? I'm a good teacher, but is that because I have the "gift of teaching"? Maybe, I dunno. I certainly think that God has gifted me to teach. Is there a difference between that and spiritual gifts?
See, men can ramble too ;).
tara:
1) An obsession with the tangible, and with results? No, not Western evangelicals! Never!
2) Apply the same sarcasm to the idea that a test score can be a way of identifying a spritual gift.
3) I guess I don't remember anything in the "spiritual gift passages" that says we get a gift and keep it for life, but i need to look again. I guess I also take the sentiment from things like 1 Corinthians 13 which put gifts in perspective against things that last (such as faith, hope, and love) and also the teaching of Paul on the use of prophetic gifts in the church which says to submit the use of one's gift in the worship service to the common good. It is just this overall sense that the gift is not something possesses, as a rite, but something the Spirit gives at will to the Church through individuals who love the Church. But sure, I'd say there could be gifts that are fairly solid, and stick with us for most of life; which can be sort of relied on.
4) I think we have a fear and avoidance of pentecostals which has led most of them to stick to themselves, and i think in so doing many of them have not had the opportunity to be challenged toward mature use of these gifts (with interpretation, and for the good of the body, etc). Nor have we had the opportunity to be challenged by them. It is sad on either side.
5) Whenever I hear "I have a word from the Lord" I pretty much don't believe it. Cynicism? Maybe. I think I'm somewhat open to being proven wrong. But I think if you really do have a word from the Lord you don't need to assert it as such. I also think such statements have lost meaning because of overuse and abuse in society, in other religions, and in our own. Anyone can say it, and many have. I think God knows it means little, and so doesn't use it. That's my take on that. PErhaps it is me justifying my cynicism though. Fair enough.
6) Only women process out loud and ramble? Come on! I kindly and smirkingly boo the generalization.
Again, good questions and thoughts Tara. Those are mine, for what they're worth.
Colin: I'm curious about that question about the difference between natural talents and spiritual gifts.
Hey, I've been following along for a while and I have a question relating more to the Salvation topic a while back but I think it also pertains to this discussion about gifts. I’m wondering if any of you could elaborate on the community aspect of salvation. If salvation is about “being part of communion with the Triune God in Christ together with all the saints, as sort of a first outpost… of the Kingdom of Heaven”, what does that look like? Community can be about conforming and unquestioned loyalty. If Christianity is about more than me and my Bible and God, more than being good and more than my Decision, what do I do with my intense desire to learn and debate and question in a Church community that seems happy to float along on entertainment? I'd appreciate your thoughts.
Janine
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